How Indian furniture design is quietly redefining modern luxury living

India Today

18-06-2025

It doesn't announce itself. It arrives gently, in the silhouette of a bench that looks like it's exhaling, in the warm edge of a cabinet that seems to invite your touch. Across India's fast-transforming design landscape, a quieter, more intimate movement is gaining ground.A movement where furniture isn't just aesthetic or functional — it's emotional. Its presence. It's memory.India Today spoke with Ms. Unnati Varma, Founder & Designer, UCUORO, to understand a design shift that's more soulful than showy — where furniture is no longer just built but felt.advertisement
In a conversation with India Today, Unnati Varma explains that this new wave of luxury design isn't trend-driven — it's intention-led. 'The best pieces today are shaped as much by dialogue as by design,' she shares. 'We often begin not with what it looks like, but how it feels when 4 pm sunlight hits it. Or how it might age with the first scuff. That's the emotion we're after.'This kind of furniture is born not in factory floors, but in ateliers that move slowly, deliberately, often taking months to complete a single piece. It's less about production and more about presence. Objects are not designed to perform; they're designed to respond to space, to stillness, to the surrounding stories.SALONS, NOT SHOWROOMSInstead of traditional store launches or catalogue reveals, many Indian studios are now introducing their creations through curated 'salons.' These are part-gallery, part-performance evenings, where a floor lamp may debut beside a poetry recital or a table is unveiled to the rhythm of a handpan.advertisement'There's no sales pitch here,' Unnati notes. It's about allowing people to experience a piece through mood, sound, scent — not just sight. It's immersive. Almost like memory theatre.'This approach is reminiscent of the salons of 19th-century Europe, but reimagined for contemporary India — rich with cultural nuance, and focused not on luxury for status, but for sensorial depth.WHERE MEMORY MEETS MATERIALWhat makes this wave of Indian design special is its material intelligence. Salvaged woods, aged cottons, cane weaves from heirloom baskets — each choice rooted in something remembered. But this isn't nostalgia for its own sake.Even modern forms carry the temperature of the past. 'The Indian-ness of it,' Unnati explains, 'is not in the motifs. It's in the rhythm. The restraint. The breath the piece allows.'A table here isn't just something to use. It's something that holds — warmth, time, and touch.One of the most defining ideas of this design movement is the dissolving of boundaries — between sculpture and seat, between utility and art. A screen might behave like a painting. A daybed might evoke stagecraft.But nothing is precious or untouchable. These are living objects — meant to be used, worn, softened with time. 'They embrace imperfection,' says Unnati. 'Like a good story, they become richer with each retelling.'advertisementIn a sense, the patina isn't damage — it's depth.SPACES THAT SLOW YOU DOWNWhat connects the creators leading this shift is not a single aesthetic but a shared intent — to slow things down. To build spaces that are not filled, but felt. Where every object tells a story, not through explanation, but through energy.This approach is increasingly being reflected in how collections are launched: not through fast fashion-style rollouts, but through experiences — multisensory, layered, and slow.'It's a grammar of atmosphere,' says Unnati. 'We're seeing a kind of cultural quietening — where people are beginning to choose touch over trend. Silence over spectacle.'At its heart, this is not a design boom. It's a sensibility shift.This furniture holds more than form — it holds memory. Of the hands that shaped it. Of the time it took. Of the silence it sat in before becoming yours.'It's not about revivalism,' Unnati says. 'It's about re-sensitisation. Creating furniture that feels. That listens. That remembers.'And in a world speeding toward more — this quiet, deliberate design might just be India's loudest idea yet.
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